


Moon-crossed

by aliceboleyn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 20:59:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17393612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliceboleyn/pseuds/aliceboleyn
Summary: Remus tried to run, but his legs were on fire and threatened him to fall on the ground. He still had James’ letter in his hands and he held it with the foolish strength of a hero escaped from a romantic novel.He kept picturing Sirius’ eyes, so full of pain and hope, the night in which his life had begun and Remus wished he could have been there to pick up the pieces with James.





	Moon-crossed

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone,  
> Before you start reading, I wanted to say that I felt it necessary to use a warning as in this one shot domestic violence is mentioned, yet graphic depictions are not present.  
> I really hope you like it, as always it took me ages to finish it, but I've been wanting to write something about these two wonderful characters for ages, so here it is. It's really simple and I'm not a hundred percent satisfied but please let me know what you think.  
> Alice

A nearly full moon was shining outside the window and Sirius had been staring at it for a time that could only be measured by his burning eyes. For the first time in days, he was laying in bed sleepless.  
On Tuesday it would have been a week since he had appeared at the Potters’ front door with his heart in his throat.  
The room which had previously been used for guests became his room for as long as he would like, that’s what Mrs Potter had told him. She then hugged him with an affection which turned his blood into the freshest water he had ever drunk.  
Sleeping had been easy, knowing that, after all, perhaps there was someone who was willing to love him. Yet that night was different, a nagging anxiety had been growing inside his chest for hours for no apparent reason and as the moon was burning the dark sky he could not help thinking about the one person who he wished would be there the most.

 

The cold night air cut Remus’ ashen cheeks harshly and his mother’s voice was still echoing in his mind, while she begged him not to walk out of that door. Remus, nevertheless, was unstoppable, even with his body wounded and weakened by the full moon of only two days before.  
The boy tried to run, but his legs were on fire and threatened him to fall on the ground. He still had James’ letter in his hands and he held it with the foolish strength of a hero escaped from a romantic novel.  
He kept picturing Sirius’ eyes, so full of pain and hope, the night in which his life had begun and Remus wished he could have been there to pick up the pieces with James.  
The Potters lived only two miles away from him, but every step felt like a stab in the back, so it took him almost half an hour to reach their house.  
But it wasn’t until he arrived that he thought about how useless his presence was. Everyone was probably already asleep and he surely could not ring the doorbell.  
He spent the following five minutes on the garden’s grass, struggling to go back to a regular respiration.  
Remus decided to leave a note to Sirius, so that he would read it in the morning, but he accidentally hit a flowerpot in the darkness trying to reach the bench against the wall.

 

Sirius’ thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a dull noise, still it took him a while to figure out where it had come from. He then looked out of the window and what he saw, he was sure, had to be a dream.  
Remus Lupin was bent on a broken flowerpot, seemingly attempting to bring it back to its original state.

“Moony!” he whispered. 

Remus then looked up and after a sigh, fell on his knees with a laugh on his red lips.

Sirius didn’t think about it for more than ten seconds, as he jumped on the window cornice and quickly landed on the grass.

“What are you doing here?” asked Sirius with a bright smile.

By the time he answered, Remus was back on his feet, with a slightly more serious expression on his face.

“I just wanted to spend some time with you guys.”  
“Then we can wake James up if you want.”

“There’s no need for that.” replied Remus rapidly.

Sirius’ features darkened with an obscure shade of awareness falling over his head.

“How on earth did you even manage to get your parents’ permission to come here so late in the night and – two days ago the moon was full, are you okay?”

An overwhelming tiredness stunned Remus, who turned around to look at Sirius’ eyes, they were just as he had imagined them.

“I’m afraid I simply left the house with my mum screaming at my back. I’m okay, more or less, thank you, how about you? We can avoid talking about it if you prefer.”

“That’s so out of character, Moony! – So I assume James has told you everything, well it’s not a taboo or anything, but it would be nice to think about something else for a while. What do you mean by more or less?”

Sirius started walking out of the garden and Remus followed him with no hesitation.

“I know, I’m already hating myself for what I have done, but I couldn’t wait. – God, this sounds so stupid. It’s nothing to worry about, but it’s harder when you are not there, the night seems endless.”

Sirius stopped to have a better look at his friend, under the light of a street lamp. The fresh cuts on his cheeks and neck were of a vivid red against his pale skin. 

“I though you were still in Scotland with you grandparents, had I know we could have come to your house.”

“I had written you some letters, but I suppose you never received them.”

The boy’s eyes shined with anger for some slow seconds, but then he simply shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s no surprise to be honest, they used to hide a lot of things from me, mostly those which made me happy.”

A warm feeling spread on Remus’ chest.

“But tell me about Scotland, was Mary Stuart’s grave still as splendid as ever?”

“Sirius, she is buried in Westminster Abbey, her son put her in front of Elizabeth I.”

“That’s seems shady.”

The boys’ laughters resonated in the empty streets. 

“Scotland was nice, by the way. One night my grandmother and I had this guided tour about ghosts in Edinburgh and we went in a graveyard which was completely dark, trust me, it was one of the coolest things ever, but I’m still a bit spooked.”

Talking about himself after all the concerns and fears which had haunted him during the day seemed absurd, but Sirius’ happiness was what he cared for.

“You’re telling me you visited haunted places without me. I feel cheated.” said Sirius in an overly dramatic tone.

“You don’t even like horror films, what is this?”

“That’s a totally different thing. It is the plots I don’t like; they’re usually set in these houses where abusive as hell families used to live and messed up shit happens and, guess what, the protagonists turn out to be just as insane as the previous owners.”

Remus slowed his pace, suddenly feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders and unable to say a word.

Sirius nodded, noticing that the conversation had taken an unexpected turn and, with a heavy heart, sighed. He then sat on the grass of the public gardens at the end of the road, there was no way he could avoid opening up to Remus.

“Sorry – I don’t know why I react like this sometime, I guess I’m still a bit emotionally unstable, like the films' characters.”

There was a moment of silence which Remus decided not to interrupt, he wanted Sirius to feel free to talk only if he wished to.

“You know, in the ends things got quite unbearable. My father spent more time at home than usual to keep an eye on me, I’m sure my mother told him to. He started to rummage through my things and he discovered that not only am I a Gryffindor, friend of muggle-borns and pretty rebellious in general, but that I also am interested in taking part in the resistance against Voldemort. – Sirius took a break to breathe deeply and Remus instinctively looked for his hand against the wet grass. He could see a little grin blooming on Sirius’ lips. – They were never kind to me, you know that, but from that moment they chose to punish me as they had never done before.”

“One night, – one night my father hit me so hard with his belt I could barely get back on my feet. That’s the night I decided I wouldn’t tolerate such treatment any longer. So I went to the Potters with nothing but a bag and I was so scared they would send me back to my parents. Mrs Potter, instead, welcomed me inside and prepared me a cup of tea, while Mr Potter offered me to go and fetch my things himself, but I told I would be fine at least for a while. Later they showed me my room and told me it would be mine for so long as I wanted it to be; but I could not bear it, so I ran to James and at first he didn’t understand what was the matter with me and, honestly, neither did I. it was only more than an hour later we had spent talking, that he asked me if he could see, how could I deny him that? I begged him not to tell his mum or she would have worried too much. Then he did his best to medicate me, while I couldn’t stop crying, I assume it was due to all of the emotions I had felt that night or maybe only out of gratitude. I will never be able to repay them.”

Remus had so many things to say, but all he could come up with was: “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there that night.”

“Well, I wasn’t there for you either and look at all the bruises it caused us.”

They laughed for a while, both feeling a little lighter.

“By the way you will not need to repay them, the Potters are your family now and that’s what families do.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure they see me as anything near a son.” Even though Sirius was smiling, there was an insecurity in his voice that hurt Remus.

“They will very soon, you’ll see.”

“Even if they did, what if – what if they saw me as a liability and eventually regretted ever accepting me into their family?” but the boy didn’t let Remus enough time to answer. “Nevermind, Moony. We haven’t seen each other in such a long time, it would be a pity to spend the whole night with me whining.”

“We’ll have all the time in the world to play pranks and laugh like idiots with James and Peter. I like listening to your whiny voice, Padfoot and for how cheesy as it must sound, you should remember that there are people who love you and what your family thinks doesn’t define you.”

This time Sirius didn’t fight to hold the tears and he allowed them to be released from his eyes and stream down his cheeks.

“Thank you” said the boy breathless and, though Remus didn’t turn to look at him, he could see his rosy skin shining.  
Sirius then leaned his head against Remus’ shoulder and for a while they simply sat in silence.

“Have you met anyone this summer, anyone interesting?” asked Sirius with a low voice.

“No, not really. – answered Remus, with a shade of surprise in his tone. – And how did it go with Marlene?”

“I had to tell her, I believe she too felt relived once she understood, she even thanked me.”

“What?”

“Yeah, she said she was glad I told her I wasn’t interested in her, nor in girls, and I didn’t use her to hide my sexuality from others.” explained Sirius calmly, now looking at Remus.

“She had a point, the Slytherin asshole you dated last fall used to have a fake girlfriend.”

“Michael. You know his name perfectly well.” laughed Sirius.

“I don’t want to say it!” said Remus, trying not to show how deeply he cared about the subject.

“That’s only because you are jealous!”

“This is very unfair, Sirius, I despise him because he treated you like crap and he hurt you in a time which was already hard on its own and what he did to you –” Remus stopped, noticing that he had let his anger slip through his fingers and it hit Sirius unjustly. “and what he did to you was cruel and vile, no matter how scared he was.”

The night air had frozen Remus’ cheeks while all those emotions were making them burn, the shining moon still made him feel a bit sick and for how hard he tried not to look at Sirius, a beastly need forced him to seek for his grey eyes. Finding gratitude instead of outrage, he genuinely smiled and in a moment Sirius’ lips were on his, as if he were trying to capture the fragments of joy on the boy’s features.  
As their breaths became one, Remus put all his strength in order to give up part of the happiness he was feeling to share it with Sirius, who inhaled as deeply as he could. 

It was not their first kiss, nor it would be their last, yet Remus could sense Sirius’ tears still wet against his skin and their hands were joint with a gentleness and an affection which would have forever marked the hearts of both.

When they stopped kissing, Remus hurried to look into Sirius’ eyes, scared of what he might see inside them. Sirius, nevertheless, kept his eyes closed for a while, enjoying the comfort of the limbo in which he fell every time he kissed Remus.

“What if –” began Moony.

“What if?”

Remus sighed, aware that asking that question would have meant opening up to a new, hard, beautiful life: “Would you like us to stop doing this in secret?” 

A bright smile altered Sirius’ handsome features: “I would like it very much.”

Finally, even Remus allowed himself to feel lighter, with a heavy heart but a picture in his mind, a picture he was not willing to give up on, a picture of happiness.

So with another kiss they sealed their promise and as the sun began to rise, so did Sirius and Remus


End file.
